Now the first inhabitants that dwelt in their possessions in their cities were, the Israelites, the priests, Levites, and the Nethinims.
The first inhabitants that dwelt in their possessions. This chapter relates wholly to the first returned exiles. Almost all the names recur in Nehemiah (Nehemiah 11:1-36), although there are differences, which will be explained there. The same division of the people into four classes was continued after, as before, the captivity-namely, the priests, Levites, natives who now were called by the common name of Israelites, and Nethinims, i:e., given (to the sanctuary). This designation, applied first to the Levites (Numbers 3:9) became afterward the distinctive title of the Gibeonites (Joshua 9:27; Ezra 2:43; Ezra 8:20). When the historian speaks of the "first inhabitants that dwelt in their possessions," he implies that there were others who afterward returned and settled in possessions not occupied by the first. Accordingly we read of a great number returning successively under Ezra, Nehemiah, and at a later period. And some of those who returned to the ancient inheritance of their fathers, had lived before the time of the captivity (Ezra 3:12; Haggai 2:4; Haggai 2:10).